1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for guiding paper delivered from an image forming assembly of an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, and a facsimile device.
2. Description of Related Art
In image forming apparatuses such as mentioned above, a printing assembly is known in which, as shown in FIG. 7, a thermal head 101 is pressed against a rotating platen roller 100 on the circumferential surface thereof, a heat-transfer ink sheet (an ink ribbon) 103 is passed between paper (plain paper) 102 passing along the circumferential surface of the platen roller 100 and the thermal head 101, and a voltage is applied to a resistance heating element arranged on the thermal head 101, thereby causing the ink on the ink sheet 103 to be heat-transferred onto the surface of the paper by the heat given off from the resistance heating element.
In the above-mentioned known printing assembly, when a portion on the surface of the paper 102 to which the ink resolved from the ink sheet 103 by the heat generated by the resistance heating element is attached has moved by the rotation of the platen roller 100 from an image forming assembly 107 to the paper delivery side, the transferred ink is fused to make the ink sheet 103 adhere to the paper 102. To peel off the ink sheet 103 from the paper 102 on the delivery side, a feed path for the ink sheet 103 is bent at a sheet guide roller 108 along which the ink sheet 103 is wound around a take-up reel 106, while the printed paper 102 is guided between two opposing guide plates 104 and 105 to be delivered.
However, in the above-mentioned prior art construction, when the paper 102 to be delivered from the image forming assembly 107 is peeled off from the ink sheet 103 at the sheet guide roller 108, the paper 102 is carried in the direction of delivery (between the two guide plates 104 and 105) with the vibration caused by an uneven pattern of ink adhesion and/or an uneven adhesion of the ink to the paper 102. This vibration causes the paper 102 to beat at least one of the guide plates 104 and 105, which produces an undesirable noise.
Especially, the guide plate nearer the platen roller 100 (normally the guide plate 105 that opposes the paper from the underside) is arranged such that its surface is generally parallel to a line 109 tangential to the circumference of the platen roller 100. Consequently, the paper 102 to be delivered by the rotation of the platen roller 100 is held at its leading edge by nothing until reaching the bending delivery path formed by the two guide plates 104 and 105, so that the paper 102 shakes, inevitably beating the surface of the guide plate 105.